I am your father, inadequately

I had a life once
Lived in selfish abandonment

I do not miss it

I have a life now
Lived in accomplishment

I embrace it

Your deeds are my purpose
Your life a testament
To the bricks I lay
Often without thought

This is a new path we travel
I honestly do not know the way
We shall let it unravel
All we have is desire, and hope, and purpose

I embrace it wholeheartedly
Lay my soul at your feet
Breathe your dreams in
And know that
While we travel this path together
There will be a time when you take the wheel
And find your own way

Re-definition of self

I have been doing some introspection on the significance of the Net on me as a human being, an individual, a writer, etc and posted the below on what was my first ever Blog. We hear all this great stuff about blogging but, due to my inconsistency, I haven't been able to effectively sustain any of my blogs. I am trying to change that. This was posted on http://infinitepursuit.blogspot.com.

Would appreciate your thoughts, if any.

"The Internet, as it re-defines itself, has provided many of us with the opportunity to reach across immense distance to create communities with like-minded people we may never have met in our lifetimes. The advent of collaborative and interactive spaces, like blogs, facebook and MySpace, have created friendships that will last over lifetimes while also allowing many of us to re-establish friendships with those who have moved on.

Sitting in Africa, a continent that has become, once again, a cause for the world, I have always tried to keep abreast, as much as I can, of the developments available to us all. I truly believe that the 'Information Age' is the one era in which there is opportunity for us, as Africans, to start to level the playing field. This Blog was my first one, which I started as a space to discuss the one thing I am truly passionate about - poetry. Since starting this one, I have also started a poetry blog (http://imperfectpoetry.blogspot.com) in which I post all my unedited raw poetry, two Myspace pages (www.myspace.com/kojobaffoe and www.myspace.com/kojothepoet) and a space of Facebook. I also have a random e-newsletter that I send out to a growing list of people, in which I share my thoughts on a range of subjects. (Always worry about whether they are relevant or not)

Anyway, I have discovered that it is easy to caught up in all these things but, over the last few weeks, have started to question the purpose of these spaces, and the countless others I have registered with and never used (and will probably never use coz I can't remember my passwords). In my mind: MySpace is a place for marketing myself as a writer and performer - I have two because I only realised you have to register with My Space Music separately if you want to include music; Facebook is for connecting with friends and I have re-connected with friends I haven't spoken to in over a decade; and, Imperfect Poetry is a self-indulgent experiment driven by a need to share and find relevance in my writing. This space? I don't know. That's what I've been grappling with.

But, I do feel this space is important, especially as my first true step into this new world. So, in an attempt to revive this space, I would like to start including my Ramblings on it. At the same time, if there is anyone who still visits me here, I would like thoughts, ideas, guidance, comments, etc on what you would like to see and hear here from a simple, yet confused African (and European) poet and writer trying to make sense of this crazy reality we reside in.

It's been a while. But I'm still here. Are you?

Easy

Kojo"

Slice

Dismember yourself
from the umbilical cord of habit
The stars do not rise
To the melodies of your tragedy
They rise anyway
Every day

There's no harmony
In the sharpness of your tongue
No value in your disheveled lifestyle
Tomorrow is for those who wake up to meet it
The sleeping never ingest it

The world does not bow to your pain
It does not taste the bitterness of your tears
Only you feel the bite as they carve their nightmares into your cheeks

There is no conclusion to random words spoken into the mirror
Just a reflection

Definition of identity

A star-crossed soul
Stands at the crossroads
There are two versions of insanity
Ours and theirs
Each required clarity
In the definition of identity

Guide me
I am your subject
Victim to your theories of subjectivity
My purpose depends on where you stand

Look beyond what you don't see
Truth lies in the blindness of mystery
I've been around the world in theory

Does that make me less of me
And more of what you want me to be

I took the opposite path
Went from white to black
And have discovered I can't really go back
I am the 'other' your mother told you about

Words have become as random as life itself
Are you still waiting for the great god to come from the sky?
Join the line
There are no short cuts
Who you are today is rarely who you are tomorrow

Mission Impossible

On hallowed ground
We ween ourselves
Of infant fears

Ghouls and goblins crawl out the walls of our sanity
To laugh at our juvenile prayers

Caged between white walls
Behind spotless glass
Amidst stainless glimmering steel
And the purring of machines
Men and women engineer our future
They carve pieces from our innermost flesh
Transform it in the name of evolution

A teenage boy watches heroes
Dreams of pausing time to travel between the ages

Man-made metamorphosis can be natural or chemical
The nightmares can become real
Regardless of the path travelled
Some breathe hope
And some inhale terror

A lifetime unlived

You have a long road ahead
You have a lifetime still to live
You will have dreams fulfilled and broken
You will laugh and, sadly, you will cry
There will be beauty and, hopefully, a little darkness

Things are not always what they seem
And the lessons you will learn
Will not always be simple or painless
Many will probably only make sense in years to come

You will triumph and, at times, fail
You will love
Yes, you will definitely love
Sometimes wholeheartedly
Sometimes inadequately
But you will love

We may not always have the answers

You will do all these
And many more, my son

I just hope that I am able to give you the tools to come out the other side, in one piece, better for it,
A man who can confront his shadow
Confident in the truth that
He always lives his truth

On my knees

Who shall write of dreams
When the poets are gone
Who shall paint possibility
When the painters are gone
Who shall sing of hope
When the singers are gone
Who shall carve reality
When the sculpters are gone
Who shall love
When you are gone

Don't leave
There must be a way

Musical chairs pt 2

Mommy I hear voices singing my future, they sing off key to mock me, breed indecision with each twisted melody. My yesterdays have faded into the music archives of time, I dream of classics yet to be sung in my name, the voices still mock me, taunting with schizophrenic harmonies

Where have all the good songs gone?

The division of music into someone's random classification leaves those of us who exist in the grey area confused

Where have they gone, the good songs?

She used to sit, listening her grandmother hum, this was the soundtrack to her childhood, rooted in the earth, the womb, the soul, the calm preceded the storm of puberty, when she stumbled through the music of her youth, and finally understood why, on those sunday afternoons, listening to her small radio in the kitchen, placed next to the stove, why, in between sunday lunch and sunday chores, she would sometimes, not always, just sometimes, she would see a tear in her mother's eyes....

Why have all the good songs gone .....

Musical chairs

Soul fantasies linger on the dancefloors of memory, transport forgotten sins from then to now, nostalgia has a habit of wiping cracked slates clean, past discretions fade with time, leave only slightly soiled fragments and a bittersweet taste that only returns when you hear that chord, that note, fullblown by the chorus, it is easier to look back than exist in the illusionary present, 'could have been' a refuge from 'to be'....

Where have all the good songs gone?

A boy sits in a room in his father's house, reaches into his father's past to find comfort, the words he hears speak a language only he seems to understand, his friend's don't quite get it, or maybe they just don't want to, the boy finds a semblence of momentary peace in the moments, the sounds reaching through the headphones to caress his heart, this is real art, he whispers wordlessly, and closes his eyes to today, drowning in a yesterday that he knows nothing of....

Where have they gone?

Songs carry our memories, take us to a place once lived, most times, they bring with them the magic of moments, sometimes, only sometimes, the pain they bring chokes....

The muse has been dethroned

I have sought the right words
In a lifetime of folly
I have looked to the stars
For the semblence of inspiration
I have lived and loved
Laughed and cried
All in search of ample fodder
To satiate my writing hand
I have observed the world
As it floats by me

And, above all, I have worshipped at the feet of the muse
Offered my soul to her
Lavished her with gifts
Danced at her whim
Made a fool of myself at her bidding
All for the right words

I have done all this and more
And drowned in a writer's block
That has gnawed at my being
Left its teeth marks on my spirit
Rendered my words impotent

I have pursued turmoil
Succumbed to pain and suffering
I have starved myself
Denied myself pleasure
All for the right words

I have done all this and more
I shall do it no more
For he has arrived
He was come to claim his space in his world that once was mine

The muse has been dethroned

My life is no longer my own
I give it to him willingly

Awakening

I didn't want leave u
I waited so long for u to come
I lingered without reason
But to be in ur presence

I didn't want to leave u
Though there are many such moments still to come
When I will have to leave
For a few hours
Perhaps a couple of days
Always to return

And she
She didn't want you to go
She held you a little closer
Wanting to hold you forever

She didn't want you go
Though there will be times when you do so freely
Always returning to where you hope is

We know there will be those moments when I will leave u
And you will have to go

There will be those moments when we will perhaps disappoint u/you
Or you/u will seek more than what the two of us have to offer

We are only human
And pray that the good will always outweigh the bad
That the stars will always shine brighter than the night
That there will be more laughter than tears

We are sadly only human
And I never want to have to leave u
And she never wants to ever have see you go

You/u are we
And we exist for you/u

The prince

(For my son)

The prince reached out
From the warmth of his castle
And surveyed the world
Grasping the air with his fingertips

We are but supporting players
In this, his starring role,
The world has shifted
Drums beat to his heartbeat
His desires are all that matters now

I held him
Hands quivering
And knew
Nothing else matters
The stars I shall bend at his will
The moon I shall pull closer for his pleasure
The heavens I shall inflate
The earth I shall move, shift, mold just to see him smile

The prince has arrived
And the king has abdicated

All hail the prince

Frustration

Every day, I start to write something, put fingers to the keyboard and open my mind in search of words to communicate something, anything. And every day, after line 3 or 4, I delete the words and give up. This space was to allow me the room to ramble randomly, laying the building blocks for what will eventually become complete writings. When it began, it was all good. Words flowed. Now I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. Has it served its purpose? Over the next 6 months, the raw and uncut poems that are on here are going to disappear one by one. Each one that disappears is to be edited in preparation for my next collection. Again I ask myself, does this mean this space has served its purpose? Has it runs its life and deserves to be allowed to die quietly without fanfare? Is what's one here worth taking to the page? Why are there always just questions?

SPAM

Poetry cannot be SPAM
Across unseen waves of consciousness
Words caress our hearts
Give souls peace
Even for a moment
Blank pages do not scare me
Nor do blank screens
They hold within them endless possibility
Words yet to be spoken
Again and again
Your blank pages house infinity
Keep filling them with poetry
Because poetry cannot be called
SPAM

Inspired by Thom The World Poet's TO LIVE IS TO GIVE

Cell. +27 (0) 83 236 6083
Management/Bookings:
Fazlyn Toeffie +27 (0) 82 880 6862; chileandlime@gmail.com

Blogs:
www.myspace.com/kojobaffoe

http://infinitepursuit.blogspot.com
Poetry:
http://imperfectpoetry.blogspot.com
www.artistswithoutfrontiers.com (Writer's Section)
http://othervoicespoetry.org/vol8/baffoe/index.html

In Word We Trust!!

Confounded mediocrity

The ordinary lingers
While magic lurks
In the distance

We seek to live
beyond the daily

Imagine our infinity
In the legacy
Passed from lips to ears

Our greatest fears
Are of invisibility

Yet mediocrity
Can be comforting

Living merely for today
Without thought of tomorrow
Breeds followers
Who dare not dream
Of a complete tomorrow

Space and time
Are nothing
When not filled with imagination

Incoherence

I'm the invisible man
Birth child of giants
Raised in silence
Product of unspoken violence
We can tear at flesh with words
Thoughts unheard
Destiny distorted by expectation

I'm the invisible man
I travel through the boundaries
Nothing can confine me
And so my prison is not belonging
I exist outside the rules
Stand alone
This within are fools
Those without are lonely

We are all invisible
What is the meaning of this vaccuum called reality?

Mayhem, Part II

When was the last time
you prayed
When was the last time
you dreamt
When was the last time
you lay yourself
At the altar of your imagination
And created an altered tomorrow

The pitiful seek peace in arrogance
The world owes them a rosy reality
Come on, now
Life owes you nothing
We are not born with stars woven into the fabric of our dreams
Reality is a construct we manifest with habit
Relevance is an exercise we perfect with practice
Sanity is a perspective

We tire of your illusions of grandeur
Bend your knees
Look to the heavens
And create castles of positivity

The world owes you nothing

Mayhem

Metaphors speak of blood and bloody murder
Of forgotten dreams
Of reality coming apart at the seams
Of fake gregarious rantings
Of misguided hope

This is the current state of breath
Perpetual autumn
The leaves are dying
The flowers curl into themselves
The soil is dry
The rains shall never come

Who will save the children
We can't even save ourselves
Truth is a dagger
Thrust into the stomach
Cleaving its way through the intestines

We no longer want to hear truth
It hurts too much

Perfect poetry

Words drill truth
Into dull minds
Clear bacteria
>From diseased minds

Mental root canal
Open heart poetry

Wish they were mine

Imperfect poetry

Perfection is a worthy cause
You decide whether you've succeeded or failed

Imperfection is inspiration
It never ends

Dead poets

Poetry often
Doesn't lie

It lasts forever
Even though poets
Must die

For their spirit
To truly live

Lost carriage

She said butterflies
made her cry
Their beauty
Reminded her of lost children

Sometimes

Beautiful things
Can't last forever

Though

Their memory
Often does

Liquidity

Save the whales
Gorillas in the mist fade into extinction
The dodo shall never return
Rhinos are brutalised for ivory
Large tracts of land cordoned off to house these glorious creatures
But what of the people who die crossing them in search of life

Put cows on milk cartons
For every sip a village gets another mouth to feed
The rules of engagement are not theirs
Another hippie knight was recognised
Another pop star gets an audience with a president
Millionaires give millions to malaria
But cause leukemia with their investment

I say come with cash
Carry it in suitcases
And hand it out at the village centre
$200 to every villager
$50 for every child
Come back again next month
Or let's go back to the way it was
Before boundaries were built and borders created
Let's revive the cowry shell
Or barter our way through the marketplace

I'd willingly exchange words for food
Or poems for shelter
But they cannot fill an empty stomach
Or protect us from the rain
Their medicinal speech does not cure AIDS
Or eradicate poverty

I say bring cash
No credit cards, no cheques
No press conferences, no programmes
Just bring cash
Enough to eradicate debt
Enough to pay for the school fees for a few million children
Enough to ensure that kids are fed

Think about it.
If you took 5% of the net worth of the 100 richest people in the world
And handed it directly to the people who needed it
We could truly make poverty history

I say bring cash

Blinders removed

Inspired by James Brown and every mother, sister:

She has birthed herself from the breathe of dreams
Willed herself into existence on the hopes of her mother and grandmother
She is their voice in the present
And she will not fail

The winds whisper her name late at night
When undreaming minds have been laid to rest
And she sleeps in dimensions other than this one

She leaves nothing to chance
The universe is being re-modelled to suit her desired colour scheme
Hope and inspiration are dressed in matching garments
And the three of them spend their evenings carving the future from their laughter

We are merely players in a play of her doing
She has commissioned our lives
And pulls at the strings of our madness when we veer off the chosen path

It may be a man's world
But I willingly lay my being at her altar
Because it wouldn't mean nothing
Without a woman in it

Fire in her eyes

Flames of fear flash
Fuel for the madness
Crass manifestion of happiness
There are thoughts to last the planet a lifetime
Yet we recycle them at random
They've been heard before
Thought before, spoken before
The packaging may be different
But they've been lived before

We perpetuate cycles
Spin the wheel endless
And reinvent it daily

Have we not learned the lessons
Are we as feeble as Icarus' wings
Is our tendon the only symbol of immortality

The sound of the police is a siren ringing into the future
The sound of repetition is hearts cracking under the weight of a lack of originality

We are living dangerously
So dangerous that our madness has become normality

What shall we become?

War

While we sleep
The bombs rain down on the heads of unknown children
Their bodies are separated from their spirits
they return to the heavens
And forsake the physical

While we sleep
They carve our souls from the earth
Fertilise it with our blood
Build fortresses on our land
Take ownership of what is not theirs to take

While we sleep
They wage war in the name of an equality that makes them stronger
Renders us the weaker

While we sleep
The bullets penetrate our bodies
Cleave humanity from humankind
Evolve us to a state of barbarism that has never existed
In the name of civilisation

While we sleep
While we sleep

While we sleep
Our prophets, our heroes, our fathers, our mothers are killed and buried in mass graves of silence
Their words drowned by the drone of fighter planes and gunships that take ownership of the skies

While we sleep
Peace is reversed
War is birthed
Death becomes the norm
Mind control real
Passion smothered
Souls extinguished

While we sleep
We lose our relevance
Our existence becomes irrelevant
Our legacy is silence
Our lives are nothing
We cannot run forever

Wake up!
I said wake up, children of the night
The world is coming to an end
What shall you tell your children?